Last Updated on April 14, 2016

Institute of Public Care has published a new paper by Visiting Professor John Bolton on predicting and managing demand in adult social care. It is a personal view, including direct experiences and research evidence gathered by Professor Bolton. It builds on his recently published paper, What are the opportunities and threats for further savings in adult social care?

The new paper, Predicting and managing demand in adult social care, is designed to prompt and guide councils on what they may need to consider when predicting and managing demand for social care services.

In his summary, Professor Bolton says, ‘The paper shows that demand prediction and management in any one local authority is more complicated than simple population projection, it explores the different factors and what, in my experience, one can do about them to ensure effective services.

‘My view is that some demand on adult care is within the influence of the council and the paper explores behaviours and practices that assist. Some councils are better at doing this than others and of course, therefore this has an impact on the different level of pressures that are being experienced across the country. The emphasis for a council that wishes to manage demand has to be on preventive actions and a better range of help for people.

‘The paper considers the variables that might be considered as part of seeking to understand likely future needs in order to predict future potential demands. Finally, I suggest that if councils do want to manage demand better there has to be a new performance management system in place.’

Predicting and managing demand in adult social care is available to download from the IPC website here. What are the opportunities and threats for further savings in adult social care? is available to download here.